With the 24/7 pump from mainstream media that everything is awesome (look at record high stocks) – despite President Trump – it’s all too easy to ignore collapsing ‘hard’ data, geopolitical turmoil, and the looming reality that the world’s central bankers are taking a distinctly hawkish turn. However, as former fund manager Richard Breslow notes, overnight we just got a big reminder that butterflies’ wings are flapping around the world, and no one knows when the chaotic hurricane will follow…

Via Bloomberg,

There’s no escaping the fact that the financial world is completely interconnected. Everyday, we say some market was up or down because some other one made a move. In a more direct context, there’s been a lively debate on whether rates can go up in parts of the world and not others. And we’ve pretty much accepted that it will be a global phenomenon, if and when it happens. This morning, I was told that Asian equities were mostly up due to strong economic data from China. And it was good data, so that made sense. But look at the wild ride Chinese equities went on and be reminded that what looks like a hazy, lazy summer Monday is masking a lot of potential volatility out there while markets continue on believing, correctly, that the central bank “puts” are very much still in effect.